Riposte

OK, Sam, I’ll rise to the bait, by way of answering a question that gets asked a great deal: what exactly do conductors do? Sam says “[Beethoven’s] 7th is a symphony in which conductors are usually inclined simply to stay out of the orchestra's way.” It seems to imply that a conductor’s job is simply to keep things together, and if the piece in question is like Beethoven’s 7th symphony, where each movement features a driving, mostly steady rhythm, we would seem superfluous.

Yes, there is something to be said about getting out of the way sometimes. There is a communal musical energy in an orchestra that is occasionally overpowering, particularly in repertoire that an orchestra knows well and has played together often. We can’t forget that the collective musical intelligence and experience of the 100 or so musicians in an orchestra will exceed what one person could possible learn or experience in a lifetime.

The limiting factor of the musical collective is the lack of focused viewpoint. Yes, I’m sure that the Minnesota Orchestra (and indeed, any professional orchestra) could get through Beethoven 7th without a conductor technically with little problem, and probably pretty musically as well. Some turns of phrase are a matter of general musical instinct (or long-standing performance practice), and those would happen quite naturally. But here is my challenge; any performance like this would be absolutely generic and lacking in larger perspective.

And I think, in the end, music is most compelling and powerful when it has a point of view regardless of whether you agree with it or not. And I mean that last bit; some of the most gripping performance I’ve heard are ones with which I’ve disagreed (which is not to say that I’m somehow “right” – it’s really all about one’s own frame of reference.) Osmo and I have widely diverging musical tastes, and sometimes during a rehearsal he will ask something of the orchestra that is dialectically opposed to what I would ask for. And that’s the whole point; I absolutely respect Osmo because he has a highly developed and carefully thought-out approach to what he does, which informs his every musical decision. Consistency and logic in approach leads to that focused perspective I was talking about. And that’s when we really hear someone say something through music, and really, isn’t that the whole point?